To:S. Y. CHUTSKAYEV

Written:Written on March 5, 1920Published:First published in 1965 inCollected Works, Fifth Ed., Vol. 51.

      Printed from the original.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1975,

      Moscow,Volume 44,

      pages352b-353a.Translated:Clemens DuttTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive.You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work, as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

ComradeChutskayev,

Especiallyurgent measures must be adopted tospeed upthe sorting of
valuables.[1]If we are too late, they will
give nothing for them in Europe and America.

InMoscow,a thousandParty members, etc., can (and
should) be mobilised for this work under special control.

Atyour end, evidently, the whole business isdragging
woefully.

Writewhat extraordinary measures you are taking to
speed things up.

[1]Thisrefers to valuable antiques, luxury articles and works of
art that had been nationalised. In February 1919, Maxim Gorky
set up a committee of experts in Petrograd to select and value
these articles. Up to October 1, 1920, this committee, consisting
of 80 persons, had selected, as Gorky wrote, “120,000 various
articles” (V. I. Lenin i A. M. Gorky.Pisma, vospominaniya,
dokumenty[V. I. Lenin and A. M. Gorky. Letters, Recollections,
Documents], 1961, p. 164). This work, however, progressed
extremely slowly. On Gorky’s letter, Lenin wrote: “only8stores
out of33have been gone through” (ibid.).